Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: finance – Page 156

D-Wave Systems is most disruptive company we’ve ever seen, says Paradigm

D-Wave not only created the standard for Quantum Computing; they are the standard for QC in N. America at least. Granted more competitors will enter the field; however, D-Wave is the commercial competitor with proven technology and credentials that others will have to meet up to or excel past to be a real player in the QC landscape.

Burnaby-based D-Wave, which was founded in 1999 as a spin-off from the physics department of the University of British Columbia has become nothing less than the leading repository of quantum computing intellectual property in the world, says the analyst. He thinks D-Wave’s customers will be positioned to gain massive competitive advantages because they will be able to solve problems that normal computers simply can’t, such those in areas such as DNA sequencing, financial analysis, and artificial intelligence.

“We stand at the precipice of a computing revolution,” says Kim. “Processing power is taking a huge leap forward thanks to ingenious innovations that leverage the counter-intuitive and unique properties of the quantum realm. Quantum mechanics, theorized many decades ago, is finally ready for prime time. Imagine, if we could go back to 1946 and have the same foresight with the ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer. ENIAC’s pioneers created a new industry and opened up unimaginable possibilities. The same opportunity exists today with D-Wave Systems. D-Wave is the world’s first quantum computing company and represents the most unique and disruptive company that we have seen in our career.

Japan is considering giving away free money

The Japanese government is considering giving away money ‘vouchers’ to poor young people to boost consumption, according to reports.

Following the examples of Finland, Canada and the Netherlands, Japan is considering the introduction of basic income, a tax-free income, after recent surveys showed that under-34s in Japan have cut spending by 11.7 per cent year on year.

Proponents of basic income say that not only does it reduce financial poverty but it has a number of other benefits, such as rewarding unpaid activities not recognised as economic contributions (parenting, for instance).

128 Things that will disappear in the driverless car era

I started writing this column while I was in Manila, Philippines for a talk with UnionBank, one of the most innovative banks I’ve ever come across.

Driving across Manila is often a painful experience with far too many cars locking up all possible arterials, and nowhere near enough money to redesign and build the needed infrastructure. But this is not unique to Manila.

As I’ve traveled around the world, I’ve run into equally bad traffic in Istanbul, Rotterdam, Los Angeles, Seoul, Mexico City, San Francisco, Rome, London, Beijing, and Mumbai. In fact there are literally thousands of cities where bad traffic is a way of life.

Salesforce: Future Works

Our sponsors provide financial support for this website. We endeavour to give our sponsors the opportunity to communicate their messages in placements that are clearly demarcated. Such placements are clearly labelled as Advertisement, Advertisement feature, Sponsored content, Sponsor’s perspective, “Brought to you by” the sponsor or words to that effect. Occasionally, we group together content from various sources relating to the same topic. In cases where content from The Economist Group is included, it will be clearly labelled as from The Economist or Economist Intelligence Unit. At all times there is a clear division between our editorial staff and sponsors, and sponsors are never allowed to influence what our editorial teams write. Sponsors are solely responsible for their content, and their views do not necessarily reflect those of The Economist.

IBM Watson is Working to Bring AI to the Blockchain

I consider this as a nice interim step in maturing the digital platform environment for financial services. However, once Quantum Computing, Quantum Internet, etc. is available to the masses such as in China, etc. this solution will fail in protecting financial data and other PPI related information as recent research is showing us.

https://lnkd.in/bjcCJ-U

IBM is currently attempting to merge artificial intelligence and the blockchain into a single, powerful prototype.

With blockchain tech’s promise of near-frictionless value exchange and artificial intelligence’s ability to accelerate the analysis of massive amounts of data, the joining of the two could mark the beginning of an entirely new paradigm.

Over the past three months, IBM’s chief architect in charge of Internet of Things security Tim Hahn has focused specifically on introducing the blockchain to his company’s artificially intelligent computer named Watson.

Will capitalism survive the robot revolution?

My new article for TechCrunch on capitalism and the robot revolution:

Economic experts are trying to figure out a question that just two decades ago seemed ridiculous: If 90 percent of human jobs are replaced by robots in the next 50 years — something now considered plausible — is capitalism still the ideal economic system to champion? No one is certain about the answer, but the question is making everyone nervous — and forcing people to dig deep inside themselves to discover the kind of future they want.

After America beat Russia in the Cold War, most of the world generally considered capitalism to be the hands-down best system on which to base economies and democracies. For decades, few doubted capitalism’s merit, which was made stronger by thriving globalization and a skyrocketing world net worth. In 1989 — when the Berlin Wall fell — the world had only 198 billionaires. Now, according to Forbes, there are 1,826 of them in 2016.

Despite growing riches, when banks collapsed in 2007 during the Great Recession, the world stepped back and wondered aloud if a more nuanced approach to economic progress was needed. These doubts of 21st century capitalism helped set the stage for an economic paradigm shift just starting to appear — economists observing jobs not just disappearing to other countries, but disappearing off the face of the Earth. The culprit: robots and software.

At first, the warnings of this weren’t very loud. After all, economies and companies thrive because of modernization, which includes upgrading with new tech to make and save money. But in the last year, a growing chorus of people are beginning to see a tipping point, maybe a decade in the future, where tens of millions of jobs may be lost in as short as a five-year period — which would be many more times the jobs lost during the Great Recession.

NSA head secretly visited Israel last week

U.S. Navy Admiral Michael S. Rogers, who serves as Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, Director of the National Security Agency, and Chief of the Central Security Service, secretly visited Israel last week, according to Israel-based Haaretz.

The visit’s purpose was to reinforce ties with Intelligence Corps Unit 8200 of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), particularly against cyber attacks by Iran and Hezbollah, according to Haaretz.

Israel has been the target of cyber attacks since the summer of 2014, but attacks have lately intensified. The U.S. too appears to have been victimized by Iran, with a federal court indicting a seven Iranians last week – said to be working for the Iranian government and the Revolutionary Guards – on charges of carrying out attacks against financial institutions and a dam in New York.

Brussels Attacks Likely to Bring Cyber-Aftermath

The tragedy in Brussels shocked the world this week—but the aftershocks of the March 22 terrorist bombings are likely to include follow-on cyber-threats.

These attacks typically involve hackers targeting critical infrastructure in order to cause chaos and physical damage, alongside fear and financial damage.

“We have been able to identify a pattern of behavior of cyber attackers and attack methods surrounding major terrorist events in Western Europe, the latest such pattern was identified after the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks,” Cytegic noted in an intelligence brief shared with Infosecurity.

Software Robots Pioneer Blue Prism Debuts on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM Market

LONDON & MIAMI–()–Blue Prism, the pioneering developer of enterprise Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software, today announced its debut on AIM of the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The first developer of software robots to trade on the public markets, Blue Prism, working closely with its global network of partners, grew 35% last year and has deployments with more than 74 customers, including a number of the world’s largest banks, insurers, utilities, healthcare, telecommunications, service providers and other regulated industries. The initial public offering (IPO) will allow Blue Prism to support its global growth plans and enhance its profile within the RPA marketplace.

“Today’s milestone follows a successful year for the company, and marks a shift in acceptance for software robots as a mainstream choice for the enterprise digital workforce,” said Alastair Bathgate, co-founder and CEO of Blue Prism. “Software robots have been deployed successfully and strategically by large, blue chip organizations that have derived tremendous value from this new solution to the labor market, it’s not science fiction.”